The Archivists
by pensandink
Summary: Magic doesn't exist, right? So why is there a massive archive devoted to storing and maintaining magical items? Colonel Perseus Jackson was part of a typical NATO counterterrorism unit - until Annabeth Chase fell out of a steam vent and the incident with the ninjas in Oklahoma, that is. [Based off of the show The Librarians] [T - violence, character death] [AR - Alternate Reality]


_A/N: Hey guys! So I'm starting another multi-chapter fanfiction…. I know, I'm sorry, but the opportunity presented itself so… _

_This fanfiction is based off of a TV series, The Librarians. This is the first part of the first 'episode,' per se._

_Warnings: Slight Violence, Character Death (Grover)_

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians franchise or the Librarians TV series._

_**BERLIN, GERMANY**_

There's a burst of static radio chatter as Percy flattens himself against the wall. "This is team leader," he says, radioing in. "We have confirmation on a weapon of mass destruction inside the building. Let's go!"

His team breaks down the flimsy door with little effort and they swarm inside, guns at the ready. A group of men shout in their native language.

"Freeze!" Percy yells. "Hands in the air!" Most of them drop their weapons and shakily, fearfully raise their hands in the air, but a ragtag man gestures to the one who's holding the nuclear weapon and they both run off.

Percy curses under his breath. All of his men are occupied, so he gives chase. They've ducked down through a stairwell somewhere, because he can see them through a hole in the floor, running. He skids to a stop and looks down. The drop isn't that far, so he jumps, landing with a little grunt – his combat gear is _heavy_ – and runs after them.

They duck behind a pillar just as Percy fires his first bullet, which clips off the pillar and flies off. He scrambles away as bullets fly back in return. Radioing in, he says, "Beckendorf, I need backup. Beckendorf, _why is that beeping!_" He fires another couple shots, but they both bounce off the pillar harmlessly.

There's a woman's voice, indistinct and muffled. "Nope. That's not it. Where's the steam vents?" Her voice starts to echo. "Nazis are always mad about steam vents. Whoa!" A hatch opens nearby and a person tumbles out, blonde hair a mess, face streaked with soot. "Ah! Don't mind me. You're obviously busy." Percy stares at her, surprised.

"I'm just here for the Opal of Samarrah," she continues as Percy swings his gun between the strange woman and his target.

"The Opal of what?" Percy manages to say before he flattens himself against the pillar, shots flying. The woman seems unaffected.

"Samarrah. Teutonic knights recovered it from Jerusalem during the Third Crusade." She strains as she closes the hatch again. "It was stolen by the Nazi occult division and stored here. Forgotten in the war, it is still-" She throws a dusty sheet off of a box inscribed with strange symbols. "Ha! Locked in the original magical safe. Which makes sense, as it is dangerous and valuable."

"Uh, dangerous?" Percy wonders, glaring at his targets as they poke their heads out, eyes wide. Percy notices the backpack holding the nuclear bomb at his feet and his eyes widen similarly.

"And valuable," the woman agrees. "It summons demons, but doesn't control them." She begins rambling as she studies the box. "And that is demonologists for you – careless, homicidal. Another common pair."

"A pair of-"

"Adjectives. They travel in pairs – dangerous, valuable." The box starts ringing as she presses a button. "Careless, homicidal. Do try to keep up." The ringing intensifies and Percy stares at her, ignoring his targets.

"Ah," she says. "I apparently set off a trap, which I have about three minutes to disarm before the opal transforms every corpse in a 100-mile radius into flesh-eating zombies, which seems unnecessarily dramatic."

"Make it stop," Percy says sharply as his targets fire another round of bullets.

"Well, I'm trying. This is a very complex alphanumeric code based on Latin Bible verses." The bomb, which Percy realizes has been beeping this whole time, continues to beep. The woman starts yelling and Percy scrambles backwards.

"And it would be a lot easier to concentrate if someone were to turn off that beeping nuclear bomb!"

Percy sneezes. "How do I defuse this thing?"

"Of course," she says. "The Stations of the Cross." She chuckles, and Percy feels like hitting her over the head with his semi-automatic rifle.

"For the bomb?" Percy asks.

"No, no, no," she says. "For the death trap. The bomb is actually much easier. Is it a black cylinder or round like a soccer ball?" Percy shoots four more bullets as the targets move closer.

"Cylinder."

"Pop open the side casing." Percy follows her instruction. "See that blue wire?" Percy's hand reaches for the blue wire. "Yes! Don't touch the blue wire."

"Aah!" Percy yelped, pulling his hand back. "Start with the 'don't.' _START WITH THE 'DON'T!'_ And anyways, there are eight Stations of the Cross, right?"

"Bzzt," the woman says, investigating the box further. "There are fourteen. Only eight in the Bible, though." She starts muttering. "John is the fourth gospel condemned to execution. Book 19, verse 17, Latin numerals 4-1-9-1-6-1-7," she says, turning dials. Something hisses. "Yes! We're 50% less likely to die."

Percy fires a shot and a man groans.

"We are, anyway. Final disarm 22566," she says, switching something.

"Yours or mine?"

"Improbably, both."

Percy punches in the code frantically on the face of the bomb and the beeping stops. Behind him, the woman sighs as more air hisses from the box.

Percy looks up from his kneeled position to see the end of an AK-47.

"Give me the bomb," the man holding the gun says.

"3-1," the woman says. "There are 30 rounds in an AK-47 magazine and one in the chamber. I heard him fire 31 shots. I did not hear him reload."

The man tries to fire a shot. The gun clicks, and a panicked expression appears on his face. Percy leaps up and punches him across the face.

"How did you know all that?" Percy hisses, the threat gone – the man's laying on the floor, groaning.

"I'm the Archivist," the woman replies simply. She pulls something from her pocket, it glows, and then she's gone.

Percy suddenly becomes aware of a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looks down – blood is seeping through his – now torn – black Kevlar shoulder protection. "Ooh, my shoulder."

His radio spurts to life. "Colonel Jackson! Colonel Jackson! You good?"

_**METROPOLITAIN PUBLIC LIBRARY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA**_

A man hurries along. His curly mop of hair is flattened down by a green cap; he walks with a significant limp, a black briefcase tucked under one arm and a stack of papers pinned to his side. A piece of paper bends and flutters in his hand as he hurries through the library.

His head is skewed to one side, a phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder. "Hello? I must speak to Annabeth Chase. I must speak to the Archivist.

The voice on the other end is blurred by static. "Ms. Chase is actually in Minneapolis at a library-sciences seminar."

"Annabeth Chase was not in Minneapolis, she was in Berlin recovering the Opal of Samarrah. It's you, isn't it? This is Annabeth Chase, the Archivist."

"How do you know who I am?" Annabeth asks, voice filling with obvious panic.

"You won't remember me."

"How do you know about the Archives?"

"I'll explain in greater detail when we meet. Just tell me where to meet you."

A man shoves into him with a grunt. A knife plunges into his side. He falls over, the paper in his hand pushed by the wind to the top of the stairs.

The man pulls the knife from his side and disappears into the growing crowd. A woman from the New York Police Department orders everybody to stand back.

The paper is pinned to the floor by a ratty blue Converse. On it is a printed picture of men bowing to a king, wearing traditional Roman armor.

Annabeth Chase, phone still in hand, picks up the paper with a trembling hand.

_**PERSEUS JACKSON'S APARTMENT, NEW YORK, UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA**_

Percy Jackson enters his apartment, the keys jingling in his hand. A black messenger bag is slung over his shoulder, a phone pinned to his ear.

"No. No, sir, I do not need any time off. My report?" He pauses. "No, I'm not saying she was an archivist. He claimed a month on leave?" He laughs dryly, pulling his face away from the phone. "What am I gonna do for a month?" he mutters under his breath, then glances around at his mostly-empty apartment. He holds the phone back up to his ear. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

He ends the call and drops the keys onto the peg by the door and sits down on the floor, sighing.

A letter whistles underneath the door. Percy leaps up and glances out the peephole.

Nothing.

He picks up the letter and cautiously unseals it. It's a blank piece of paper, stamped at the top with _Metropolitan Public Library._ He turns it over. Blank.

He hears a woman's voice, generic and sterilized, as he flips the note back over. Gold lettering appears on the paper.

"You have been selected to interview for a prestigious position with the Metropolitan Public Library."

"Library?" Percy wonders aloud.

_**METROPOLITAIN PUBLIC LIBRARY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA**_

"I'm Colonel Perseus Jackson. I received this," he says, handing the woman behind the desk the white note. "Slipped under the door."

"You got the white envelope," the woman says, giddy. She's maybe in her early forties, streaks of gray are in the mousy brown hair tied back with a traditional bandana, and her eyes glow with a reddish, comforting warmth. "I'm Hestia. And you are what?" she asks, grabbing Percy's wrists and inspecting his sleeves. "Colonel what? Colonel military? Colonel police? Air force?"

"What? NATO counterterrorism unit. Please stop touching me."

"You _are_ the new guardian. Oh, Annabeth's going to make a fuss. She hasn't had a guardian in 10 years! But even she can't argue with the white envelope."

She grabbed him by the wrist – again – and pulled him towards a nondescript bookcase. Nobody paid them a second glance as she pulled a book out, revealing a secret elevator.

Hestia all but shoved him in, waving a clipboard. But Percy had one question.

"What's a guardian?"

"'What's a guardian?' A_dorable_. All right, Perseus Jackson, got that," she said, marking something on her paper. "We're going down."

Hestia pushed a button and the numbers indicating what floor they were on went far down, very fast.

"Very far down," Percy noted.

"Oh, those. It's really a metaphor, not real numbers." She shoved the clipboard into his hands. "Sign here, here, and here. Each Archivist has a guardian who's trained in combat, tactics, survival. Sort of the brawn to the Librarian's brain." She hit her head with the heel of her palm. "But no, no. Much more than that. Sort of, the, uh, common sense to their head in the clouds."

"Didn't see a lot of threatening situations in the bookshelves upstairs," Percy remarked, handing Hestia her clipboard.

"Oh, the Metropolitan Library upstairs," Hestia clucked. "That's just the entrance to the real library downstairs, where we keep all the artifacts and magic too dangerous to be left out in the world."

Percy chuckled. "There's no such thing as magic."

Hestia shook her head fondly. "The Archive collects ancient knowledge and ensures that magic – real magic – doesn't fall into the wrong hands. You got the white envelope, an invitation to join the Archives, which means the Archives need your expertise."

The elevator doors opened with a pleasant _ding_.

"Welcome to the secret world, Colonel Jackson. Welcome to the Archives."

_A/N: Sorry (not sorry) I had to end it there, but it was getting really, really long. Expect to see more!_


End file.
